Stories of the StrangeStories of the Strange
By M. Cherise Perez
May 7, 2006 - 9:00:00 PM

Party till it’s 2099

WISCONSIN, U.S. – Clocking in at 12-years, 3 majors, 3 minors, 250 units, and more parties than he can remember, notorious 29-year old University of Wisconsin-Whitewater undergraduate Johnny Lechner may finally walk down the graduation aisle.

Among his other achievements are a long list of extracurricular activities, a decent GPA, various cameos on “The David Letterman Show” and other television programs (featuring his eternal-student lifestyle), and a job offer from National Lampoon.

Why, you ask, would such an accomplished professional student want to throw in the towel and give up the college party life that he loves so dearly? (Yes, he publicly admits that he mostly sticks around for the parties).

Answer: “The Johnny Lechner Rule” aka the “slacker tax,” an evil plan created by the UW Board of Regents to double the cost for full-time tuition for any students with too many credits. Says Johnny: “I’m just broke.”

His official website, http://www.johnnylechner.com/ has a link to “Johnny’s College Fund,” where he accepts donations from anyone that would like to keep him in school and extend his expected May-2006 graduation.

A Song For A Shotgun

COLOMBIA, SOUTH AMERICA – After years and years of political and military insurgency, the Columbian government is sponsoring a peace effort to create and distribute escopetarras, the “shotgun-guitar,” to musicians that vouch to spread a message of peace around the world.

These custom electric guitars were actual assault rifles and machine guns, and have been transformed by local musician Cesar Lopez into instruments of a different kind. Lopez’ building materials came from the arms that rebels relinquished in order to discuss peace deals with the government. The idea for the escopetarra hit him as he strummed his guitar next to a soldier wielding a rifle during a peace rally.

Many famous musicians, such as Colombian singer Shakira, Carlos Santana, and Paul McCartney will be future escopetarra-ians.

Interestingly enough, Juanes, a Colombian rock star, was constantly harassed by the Colombian police about the ‘dangerous’ weapon he carried around on a national tour, but he was able to pass the escopetarra through United States customs without a single hitch or stop when he entered the country for the U.S. tour.

And The Bras Will Unite Us All…

PAPHOS, CYPRUS – In a monumental effort to raise awareness for breast cancer, a group of determined souls on the island of Cyprus assembled a chain of 114,782 bras to break the Guinesss World record for, well, the longest chain of bras in the world.

The previous record was held by Singapore, for a measly 79,000 bras.

The 70-mile loop of lingerie was organized by a few women from Cyprus, an island in the Mediterranean Sea, and included bras from Brazil, Martinique, Iran, and even Alaska. The record-breaking attempt was planned out for about a year, finally culminating in a nine-hour bra-loop-building extravaganza.

The organizers will entrust the Red Cross to secure a future home for the world-famous bras. To further support the breast cancer awareness cause, a database with names of high-risk women is being developed to send text-message alerts and breast cancer screening reminders.